AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST 
FOR THE 
TCar-m, Grar-clen, and. Ud ouse It o Id. 
“AttlilCULTUIiE IS THE MOST HEALTH I’LL, HOST USEFUL, AMI MOST NOISLE EMPLOYMENT OF MAN #” - W ASHINGTOX. 
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VOLUME XXXV.-No. 4. NEW YORK, APRIL, 1876. NEW SERIES—No. 351. 
STAGING ACROSS THE PLAINS—THE START. — Drawn and Engraved for the American Agriculturist. 
Before the Pacific Railroad was constructed, 
“Staging” was the usual method of crossing the 
Plains, either to the mountains or west of them to 
the Pacific Coast. Of late years the stage has been 
in use only upon lateral roads, and for short dis¬ 
tances. Recently the excitement consequent upon 
the discoveries of gold in Southern Colorado and 
the Black Hills of Dacotah, is drawing thousands 
of people from their homes to seek their fortune 
in these new El Dorados. It is so long since stages 
were in general use, and so long since those who 
are now settled on farms near what is called the 
frontier, reached their present homes, by stages, or 
made their slow weary tramp across the Plains with 
ox-teams, that these slow modes of travel are among 
the almost forgotten things of the past. Now this 
kind of travel has begun anew, and pioneer trains 
or single wagons or stage coaches again wind their 
way along the trail, stop and start again, as before, 
and scenes like those shown in the above engrav¬ 
ing are re-enacted each morniug. The discomforts 
of such a journey can hardly be overrated. The 
dusty road, the hot, dry atmosphere, which shrinks 
the woodwork of the vehicles, until they some¬ 
times fall apart; the absence of any comfortable 
stopping-places, where one can eat or 6leep; the 
cost and labor of carrying everything needed for 
use on the way—often even water to drink—and 
upon which to subsist during some months of the 
stay, after the journey’s end is reached, is very 
great, and if one is obliged to purchase the com¬ 
mon necessaries of life, he must pay most exorbi¬ 
tant prices. After all attendant discomforts, the 
end is almost certain to be disappointment, if sud¬ 
den wealth is the object sought. This has been 
the almost universal experience, and should warn 
every person, but utterly reckless adventurers, to 
stay at home, if he has one. Many a man has 
squandered in such a journey as this as much 
money as would have purchased and stocked a 
good farm, and has either returned penniless, or 
left his bones bleaching upon the bare ground. 
